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Friday, July 10, 2015

Oi, stop playing with firecrackers lah bodoh!

Enforcement and confiscation is not enough. We must make people aware of the dangers of firecrackers
COMMENT
firecrackers
It is 12.14 in the morning and I can’t sleep.
No, it’s not the coffee I had right before bed time. It is not the mosquitoes. And it is surely not my son who keeps on stealing my blanket.
It is the firecrackers. Yes the stupid firecrackers.
It has been almost a week now since my son and I had a good night’s sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I hear “Badaboom”. And my school-going boy wakes up almost every hour grumbling about the noise.
Today I decided to do something about the noise after putting up with it for days.
I got out of bed, put on my sweaters and headed to the balcony – I wanted to see the monkeys who were responsible for our sleepless nights and give them a piece of my mind.
To my amazement, those setting off the fireworks weren’t just ordinary monkeys – they were baby monkeys. Yes, kids aged no more than 12 were on a small bridge across the Sungai Penchala behind my condo, setting off fireworks.
Now these were not the typical firecrackers and fireworks, mind you. They were not the usual Sparkles or the micro tampon look alike Pop-Pops. Instead, these kids were playing with the prohibited stuff – the rockets, boomers, M-90s, A-Bombs and many other China-made tiny explosive crackers about 3 to 4cm length which made loud deafening sounds.
For me, firecrackers are a real pain in the butt because of their ability to make me go deaf! And it’s not just me. Standing at the balcony, I hear “Oi!” , “Bodoh!”, “Orang mau tidur lah!” screams from the surrounding balconies of many other apartments.
If those living in the neighbourhood were so affected by the irritatingly loud sounds made by firecrackers, I wonder how the kids’ parents were reacting to it. Seriously, where the heck were the parents? What were the kids doing outside the house after midnight anyway? And where were they getting these prohibited firecrackers?
Most firecrackers and fireworks have been banned in Malaysia for years. But still every year we hear of accidents caused by these prohibited explosives. In the past week alone there were a handful of cases reported around the country.
On 1st July, a 15 year old boy in Kota Baru lost four fingers while playing with his homemade cracker. Meanwhile in Kuala Langat, a 4 year old boy lost five fingers when an A-Boom firework exploded in his hand. In Terengganu, a 6 year old boy suffered injury in his lower body when his stupid friends placed a Dragon firework inside the pocket of his pants.
But the most unforgettable (and sad) case has to be that of the young man whose brains exploded when he peeked into his homemade cracker to find out why it had not shot up after he had lit it. Surely you remember the incident which happened some three years ago since the pictures of his mashed up brains went viral. If you don’t, do me a favour – Google it and share it with your kids.
Fireworks don’t only affect the individuals who set them off. They also bring devastation to families. There are so many cases of families having to celebrate Hari Raya in community halls and relative’s houses, in borrowed clothes because some stupid people decided to have fun with fireworks and the fun turned into tragedy.
With all the enforcement carried out by the authorities, I wonder how firecrackers and fireworks keep getting smuggled into the country? How do they find their way to the markets? How are sellers able to sell them freely at Bazar Ramadhan, pasar malam and from their car trunks?
And what happens to the confiscated firecrackers and fireworks? Are they destroyed or are they ‘reused’?
When I was a kid, I remember my next door neighbour, a policeman bringing home boxes of confiscated fireworks. Does the same thing happen today?
Today, only two types of fireworks can be sold to the public – Pop-Pop and Happy Boom – and both require police permits. Yet I don’t see permits displayed in the pasar malam stalls.
The authorities today have appealed to the public to cooperate with them in order to curb the widespread sale of prohibited firecrackers and fireworks. However they fail to provide us with details of how we can go about doing so.
For example, who do I call if I see someone selling prohibited fireworks?
Or who do I call when I see a bunch of people setting off the prohibited stuff?
Come on, confiscation and enforcement alone are not going to prevent tragedy. We must also spread awareness of the danger.
Perhaps it is time our authorities stopped yapping and started brainstorming about how to tackle this issue because honestly, I can’t stand these ‘Badaboom’ ‘Badabing’ noises anymore!

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